


Thaw

by Sylla



Category: Violet Evergarden (Anime)
Genre: AU as of next episode let's effing go, Canon-Typical Violence, Dietfried is swimming in de Nile but I'm about to pull him out by his stupid braid, F/M, look Ma I found a pairing so niche it doesn't exist yet, questionable judgement shown on all sides but especially mine, their relationship improves more slowly than in canon because I love Suffering(tm), uncomfortable realisations for dayyys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-16 11:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14164299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylla/pseuds/Sylla
Summary: Dietfried hates her; that part is without question.Unfortunately for him, Violet has a habit of upending people’s expectations of her.





	1. Marigold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pulls most trash character from the bottom of the trash heap* I want this one, mommy
> 
> I feel the need to specify that this isn’t about pairing Violet with the man who had no compunctions about giving his younger brother a literal child soldier as a gift and who sees her as an object instead of a human being because I'm not about that life.
> 
> What this is about is *grinding that man down to a fine powder* until he realises just how wrong he’s been. ... and *then* maybe pairings can happen.

 Dietfried would be happier if she died. He would. After all, what use is a tool that can’t serve its singular purpose? Having failed to protect Gilbert, she _has_ no purpose – it would be a kindness to end her. Put the broken, useless weapon out of its misery. Every moment she continues to exist is a disrespect to his brother’s memory.

 And yet, when he climbs onto the train car roof and sees that damnable brooch held in the Gardarik rebel’s fist, and the sword held high, he doesn’t think. He simply – acts.

 (Later, he will tell himself it was nothing more than his soldier’s instinct taking over at the sight of an enemy combatant. It’s close enough to the truth.)

 In retrospect, the decision to aim for the head was a stupid one. The lurching of the train cars is so unpredictable as to make proper aim almost impossible, given the distance. Somehow it works out anyway: his shot hits the sword, which spins out of the rebel's hands and clatters off the train. The sound is lost in the rush of air as they enter the tunnel.

 She’s not moving. She doesn’t move even as he shoots the two soldiers holding her down. He aims for the body this time, and both the shots land; despite the reduced visibility, he’s adjusted to the rocking of the train. And he’s always been a _very_ good shot.

 “What are you doing?” He shouts to make his voice heard over the rush of wind. Without waiting for a reply he rushes the nearest rebel soldier – the one who’d been holding the sword. The man is rather less impressive when not facing a slip of a girl held down by two other men, and Dietfried pitches him off the side of the train with ease.

 “Bastard!”

 Two other soldiers apparently take exception to seeing their commanding officer fly overboard, and decide to rush him both at once. They're close enough they don’t even bother trying to shoot him.

 The first stabs his bayonet at him, but Dietfried dodges easily, using the man’s momentum to throw him forward; they’re enraged at the loss of their commanding officer, and their movements are easy to predict. He brings his elbow down hard over the man’s back, and the man loses his balance and tumbles off the side of the train. The second one, incredibly, tries to use his bayonet as a club. His patience at an end, Dietfried wastes no time in sinking his knee into the soldier’s gut and roundhouse kicking him off the side of the train.

 She’s still sitting there, unmoving.

 A wave of white-hot rage washes over him. His brother gave his life to protect hers and she just – throws it away trying to spare the lives of the very people trying to blow the nascent peace to smithereens? The same people responsible for Gil’s death?

 Before he realises what he’s doing he has her by the lapels as he snarls, “You’re not even strong enough to protect yourself, and now you refuse to kill?” He’s angry, angrier than he’s been in a while. This isn’t the time or the place – there could still be more Gardarik rebels around, and they’re sitting ducks out on the roof of the train car like this – but he doesn’t care. His fists are balled so tightly in her jacket that his knuckles are white and bloodless. “My brother Gil gave his life to protect someone like _you_?” he spits.

 This finally draws a reaction. She draws a breath, meets his eyes.

 “I do not want to kill anymore. The major’s orders were to live, not to kill!” She’s shouting now, too. He scowls. Gilbert gave her orders before he died? It’s the first he’s heard of this. He doesn’t doubt it, though – spending his last living moments on earth worrying about his battle doll instead of his own skin sounds _exactly_ like Gil. That that she managed to turn his head so completely makes him even angrier, if possible.

 “Tell me, what use is a battle doll that no longer wants to kill?” He lets go of her unceremoniously and she falls backward. “That’s why you weren’t able to protect him! _You_ killed Gil! That’s why you should die too! Hurry up and _die_!” He’s breathing heavily by the end of his tirade. Later on, he’s dismayed he allowed himself to lose his cool so completely. But in that moment, all he wants is for her to feel something – a _fraction_ – of the pain boiling in his chest. He wants her to admit it’s her fault Gilbert is dead.

 He doesn’t get what he wants.

 “Even so.” Her voice is so quiet he almost doesn’t hear it over the roar of the tunnel. She stands slowly, but her voice becomes stronger by the second. “The major ordered me to live.” She looks up and there’s that damnable expression again, that same look she wore when she came to the barracks demanding, _is it true?_

 “I wanted to protect him!” she cries, walking towards him now. “I… I wanted to protect him, too!”

  _Liar_ , he wants to snarl, _if you wanted to protect him you would have!_ But he never manages to get the words out, because just then there’s a shout from further down the train.

 “Brigadier General!”

 At once Dietfried realises how stupid he’s been, letting his emotions run away with him in the middle of a crisis. Standing three cars down is a rebel soldier. A rebel soldier with a grenade launcher.

There’s no time to get out of the way. He acts on instinct. Flinging the girl behind him, Dietfried aims, tries to account for the movement of the train under him as best he can in the split second he has, and fires. His shot goes wide by a hair, wounding the soldier but not killing him. The Gardarik soldier stumbles, pitches sideways – and smiles, and Dietfried knows this time he’s well and truly screwed.

 It looks like the high command have finally succeeded in offing both the Bougainvillea brothers. He wishes he could say it’s been a good run but honestly, right now all he feels is that _anger_. What a way to die.

 It happens so fast he can barely follow her movement. _She_ flings herself between him and the rebel soldier, somehow perfectly predicting the grenade’s trajectory – and bats it away like it’s _nothing_. It ricochets off at an angle and hits the side of the tunnel with a deafening explosion, magnified by the tunnel walls. It’s close enough to make his vision double for a brief second and put a shrill ringing in his ears. He drops to one knee, shielding his face from the debris.

 When the smoke clears, the first thing he sees is the fluttering ivory of her dress in front of him. A single, stunned realisation makes its way to the front of his mind.

 She’s just saved his life.

 Almost too quick to register she leaps into action, flying across the train car roof towards the rebel soldier as he pitches sideways into the yawning black. Dietfried has no time to concentrate on that, though: there’s a gunshot and a ripping pain in his shoulder; blood spatters across his face. His.

 The rebel soldier he thought he’d gotten rid of somehow managed to catch himself and climb back onto the train’s roof, and is taking aim at Dietfried again. With a snarl, brings his own gun up.

 Two shots ring out. For a moment neither of them move – then the Gardarik soldier sways, totters backwards – and then his foot slips over the edge of the train car roof, and he’s gone. They’re alone save for the rush of wind.

 Reflexively he looks over to where the other Gardarik soldier was. It’s just the girl now; she’s standing stock still, staring down at the tracks below. A scrap of fabric he recognises as part of the soldier’s uniform flutters in her hand. She must have tried to save him from falling off the train. To no avail, clearly.

 He raises an experimental finger to his shoulder, feeling the wound. He swallows a hiss of pain – it stings, but it seems to be only a surface wound.

 “Are you planning on staying there all night,” he calls, “or are you going to make yourself useful?” She starts at that, turning towards him. For a moment she doesn’t move – then, without a sound, she makes her way back towards him.

 As they climb back down into the train – a little awkwardly on his part, due to his wounded shoulder – she murmurs something so soft he can barely hear it. Perhaps he’s not meant to.

 “If I’d had these arms back then, I could have saved him.”

 He doesn’t reply. She’s not wrong. The metal arms make her even deadlier than she was before, even harder to kill – making it all the more ironic that someone like her would become some sort of _pacifist_. But the adrenaline of the battle is starting to ebb, leaving him too drained to argue. Besides… she did save him from that grenade. Even he’s not ungrateful enough to keep belabouring the point after that.

 “The special envoy is with Cattleya and Benedict.” She turns to him once they’re both back inside. He nods wordlessly and follows her down the hallway. A small part of him can’t help but be surprised: he saw the bodies of the men he’d posted to the envoy’s cabin at the front of the train – likely they’d fanned out to intercept the attackers and been slaughtered – and assumed the man must be dead. Him being alive is a significantly better outcome than Dietfried expected, given the circumstances.

 They enter the compartment and three anxious faces turn to them as one.

 “Violet!” The other Auto Memory Doll – Cattleya, was her name? – wastes no time in enveloping the girl in a hug. She lets out a strangled sound of pain, and Cattleya immediately releases her with a gasp.

 “You’re hurt!”

 “What happened?” the blond man rushes over and leans over, trying to get a look at the damage.

 “I’m fine. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

 Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Dietfried instead addresses the envoy. “It’s safe now, sir. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you back to your compartment.” He _hopes_ more than _knows_ the danger’s past, but there’s no sense in worrying the envoy over something out of their control.

 “Of course.”

 He delivers the envoy back to his quarters and advises him to lock thedoor – just in case. Then he makes his way back to the other compartment.

 By the time he returns, Cattleya has finished bandaging the gash across the girl’s back. She pulls her tattered jacket back on as Cattleya picks at the blood-stained slash with a concerned tut; as she does so, a small smile unfurls on the girl's face, delicate as a spring flower and just as quickly gone. Something starts within him: he’s never seen her actually _smile_. Perhaps it’s a cumulation of all the events of the past hour, but this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. A small, niggling doubt takes root in his mind.

 Dietfried is not a man known for his empathy. Nor is he a man to second-guess himself. But he’s no idiot, and he’s no coward, and he’s not the type to hide his head in the sand when the evidence is screaming in his face. And so he forces himself to look again at the scene in front of him, to set aside everything he knows the girl to be and simply _look_.

 When he found her on the northern lines, she was emotionless, mute. To call her a shell of a person would be to imply there was ever any _person_ in there at all. It was easy to assume she was essentially unchanged; logical, even. It was ludicrous to think such an emotionless automaton could ever hope to have _feelings_.

_(You were nothing more than a tool to him … so how could you be sad?)_

 But as she sits still and allows Cattleya to assess her handiwork one last time, he realises. She doesn’t look emotionless.

 She simply looks… contemplative.

 She turns and her eyes lock with his. For some reason he’s seized by a momentary urge to look away, which he swiftly quashes. Then she’s standing up, and making her way over until she’s standing directly in front of him.

 “Captain,” she says in that exact way of hers. “We have no way of knowing if this was their only plan. I will stay and protect my friends.”

  _Friends?_ That’s rich. He has half a mind to _order_ her to return to Leiden as soon as they reach their destination – but after seeing her turn down a weapon tonight, he realises she might actually refuse to comply. So instead what he says is:

 “Come with me.”

 She follows him out of the compartment readily enough, hands clasped tightly behind her back. He briefly wonders why she’s still doing that – it must pull at the wound – before deciding he doesn’t much care. Once outside he turns towards her again. “We need to secure the rest of the rebel soldiers – those that haven’t taken their chances and jumped off the train by now, anyway.” It’s a shame they couldn’t move faster to take them prisoner, but circumstances are what they are. “We’ll start with the front of the train and work our way back.”

 “Understood.”

 They make quick work of apprehending the remaining rebel soldiers – those left alive, at any rate. They leave them in the empty compartments; once they reach Gardarik they’ll be handed over to the military. Once that’s done, they start on the bodies, carrying them to the back of the train and laying them out, friend and foe alike. It feels… strange, having the girl working beside him. She works silently and efficiently, her face grave. He wonders, briefly, if she behaved like this with Gil, or if she was more… talkative. He shakes the thought from his head.

 “Captain.”

 Speak of the devil. She’s leaning down between some crates; when she straightens, there’s dark green cloth in her hands. A conductor’s uniform.

 “Then it’s as I thought,” he muses aloud. “They must have used the delay caused by the fires to sneak onboard at the station. If that’s the case it’s unlikely they’ll be able to mount another attack before we reach Gardarik.”

 She nods, though whether in agreement or simple acknowledgement he doesn’t know or care to ask.

 Their grim task done, he leads the way out of the cargo car. The girl pauses at the doorway, looking back at the car full of bodies – and there’s that damned sadness again. He doesn’t know what to make of it. He hates that it makes him feel uncertain. He hates everything about how this day has unfolded, actually – being caught out, the loss of his men, all of it.

 He manages to remain silent until they reach the civilians’ compartment; just as she’s about to enter, he speaks.

 “Wait.”

 She stops with her hand on the doorknob.

 “Since when have you had this little… crisis of conscience?”

 She meets his eyes with a directness that makes him strangely irritated. Then again, everything about her irritates him. Why should this be any different?

 “Do you want to know if it was my refusal to kill that lead to the Major’s death?”

 Damn her, she’s right. It’s _exactly_ what he wants to know. Despite all his earlier vituperations, he wants – _needs_ – confirmation. He’s read the report she submitted from the hospital after the Battle of Intense, of course he has, but only she knows exactly how it went down. “Yes,” he grinds out. But she’s shaking her head.

 “It was only recently I came to this conclusion. I’ve…” she trails off, and her gaze momentarily slides to one side before she redirects it back to him. “I don’t want to kill anyone else,” she reiterates. And then she’s gone, into the compartment, and he’s standing alone in an empty hallway.

 He returns to his compartment and resists collapsing on the bed just long enough to undress and clean the would on his shoulder. As he thought, it’s a surface wound; no actual muscle damage. He snorts quietly. Thank goodness for poor marksmen.

 If they’re lucky the rebels put all their eggs in one basket and this will be the only attack before they reach Gardarik – but Dietfried doesn’t believe in luck. Not the good kind, anyway; life has taught him better. And they’ve underestimated the rebels before, believing them to be totally wiped out in Ctrigall. If it weren’t for Violet spotting the Gardarik army in Ctrigall, they might not have realised how serious the situation was until it was too late. It’s a thought that keeps him up far longer than it should, staring at the wood-panelled ceiling of his compartment, before he finally manages to find sleep as the false dawn creeps across the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Violet Evergarden. I love the way it just *clenches fist* *clenches fist harder* *starts crying*
> 
> I realise this probably counts as a trash pairing but consider this: *unfurls banner that says 'I do what I want'*
> 
> also Intense and Eckstreme are dumb names but then again Europe literally has a town called “Fucking” so why should fantasy Australia-shaped Europe be any different I guess.


	2. Forsythia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy SMOKES you guys, I was not expecting this level of response to the first chapter! When I posted it I legitimately thought I’d be the only one interested in this pairing, but apparently there’s other trash pandas in this fandom apart from me, so FULL STEAM AHEAD I SAY. You guys are awesome <3
> 
> I rewrote this chapter a total of three times – *three!* – because I wasn’t satisfied with it, but I finally hammered it into something I like. I’m not kidding when I say all the comments I got on chapter 1 are what kept me pushing forward. Please enjoy this even-longer chapter to make up for the delay. Seriously, this monster is 3.8k words. This is the point where I suplex this crazy train right off the rails of canon, by the way.
> 
> By this point I’ve probably rewatched episode 12 about seven times. For… research purposes.

“Hey. Wake up.”

Gil is standing at his side in the dark room, curiosity so strong he can almost sense it rolling off him in waves. A figure shifts at the foot of the bed, blankets falling away like an old cocoon. However, it’s not wildling child with unkempt hair that sits up slowly, but the Doll. At her throat, the brooch glints in the dim light.

“Major?” Her voice is a siren call.

“Violet!” Gil cries, pulling her close and clutching her against him. “I missed you,” he murmurs tenderly into her hair.

Dietfried feels the familiar anger rise in his chest. “Why?” he asks, clenching his fists. “Why are you so happy to see her?” They both turn to look at him in eerie unison. “I could have protected you, Gil.”

Gil laughs at that, clear and warm. “What are you talking about, Dietfried?” he replies. He turns back to the girl in his arms. “Violet can protect me just fine.”

“No she can’t! She never could!” But Gil either doesn’t seem to hear him, or doesn’t care. He seems entranced by the sight of the girl. He doesn’t react at all as she slowly raises those metal arms and wraps them tight around his neck –

Dietfried awakens with a jerk. His heart is racing, and his chest is so tight he can hardly breathe. He realises his pillow feels wet under his cheek; he must have been crying in his sleep. It’s been a while since that’s happened. Since the first days after Gil’s death, in fact.

His head feels like it’s been stuffed full of wool. The clock on the bedside table tells him he’s slept maybe four hours, if that. He stifles a groan, passing one hand over his face. There’s no going back to sleep though, not after a dream like that, so instead he drags himself out of bed, cleans himself and gets dressed – in his Navy officer’s uniform, this time. There’s no longer any need for disguise.

He’s busying himself trying to draft a more complete report on last night’s incident for his superiors – without much success – when a knock comes at the door. His thoughts immediately fly to the girl, but when he opens it, it’s the blond man from the CH Postal Service who stands in front of him. He thinks he heard the other Doll call him Benedict. Another of the girl’s supposed _friends_. If only they knew how ridiculous the notion is.

“I was asked to tell you we’ll be pulling into the station in an hour or so.” The shorter man looks as rough as Dietfried feels; he’s still in the same clothes he wore yesterday – judging from how rumpled they are, he slept in them.

Dietfried thanks him – a tad stiffly – for the information, and retreats into his compartment. Before he knows it, they’re pulling into the central station at Hormgard, the capital of Gardarik. The air is crisp and cold as they step off the train, but the sun is bright.

A contingent of soldiers and diplomats awaits them on the platform; while the envoy greets the other diplomats, Dietfried busies himself debriefing the commanding officer. The station becomes a swarm of activity as the Gardarik army carts off the rebel soldiers – and the bodies. Through it all, he can see the girl standing with the other two civilians. She’s quiet, unmoving, almost trance-like. She looks, in that moment, exactly like she was all those years ago. A surprising jumble of emotions spring to life in his chest and immediately begin warring for dominance, part _I was right_ and part _but what if_ and part _why should_ I _care?_

“Sir.” A voice jolts him back to the present, and Dietfried realises he’s trailed off. He gives himself a mental shake.

“We have reason to believe their numbers may be greater than we thought. One of the survivors may be able to give confirmation.”

The officer in charge – a young Lieutenant from the Gardarik army – nods enthusiastically. He has a sort of painful eagerness about him that war hasn’t been able to stamp out, though he’s clearly been involved in the fighting: a scar winds down the side of his face and into the neckline of his officer’s jacket. Dietfried feels a brief stab of animosity, and reminds himself there’s no way this particular soldier could have been at the battle of Intense, not when most of Gardarik’s forces were at the eastern front at the time. _He’s not the one to blame_.

Formalities over, they’re escorted to the Leidenschaftlich interim embassy, where the treaty signing is due to take place in two days’ time. He chafes at the delay, but it’s unavoidable: some of the representatives from other nations have yet to arrive. Cattleya and Benedict seem overly protective of the girl, insisting she be allowed to accompany them even though she wasn’t on the passenger manifest. Dietfried has no problem with that – at least it gets her out of his sight.

-

Dietfried takes lunch in his quarters and busies himself for the next few hours reading all the intelligence reports on the rebel faction the Gardarik intelligence forces have managed to compile. It’s… less than he would have hoped.

He tosses the report onto the coffee table and leans back into the armchair, pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s clear Leidenschaftlich – and Gardarik, all of them – have seriously underestimated the rebel forces. Not only are they more numerous than initially supposed, they’re far more coordinated. The battle at Ctrigall, he now knows, was a diversion to make everyone think they’d been wiped out – a successful diversion, at that.

If they underestimated the rebels in Ctrigall, what else could they be wrong about? Could they have also underestimated the level of popular support for the rebel fighters? He feels the lack of information like a sword dangling over his head. This entire city is a powder keg, and he _needs_ to know how likely it is to explode.

There’s a day and a half left until all the official pomp and circumstance begins. Though his body is crying out for sleep, he can’t afford to indulge it right now. He’s already learned all he can from the reports given to him by the Gardarik intelligence forces, and it’s not enough; the only remaining recourse is to put his finger on the pulse of the city himself.

With that in mind, he changes out of his military garb and into something a little more civilian; his distinctive braid he hides under a cap. He’s about to head out when a thought occurs to him. It’s unpleasant, but he’s forced to acknowledge its merits: a partner would be a useful aid in passing undetected.

Unfortunately, there’s only one obvious choice.

With a sigh, he turns back and makes his way to the Auto Memory Dolls’ quarters.As luck would have it, he finds them walking down the hallway just outside.

“You.”

She turns immediately; as always, a small, spiteful part of Dietfried is pleased she still responds immediately to _you_. He can see the other Doll bristling beside her, but pays her no mind.

“I’m going outside to get a feel for the city. If you want to make yourself useful, come with me and help me blend in.”

“Understood,” she replies without hesitation. He wasn’t expecting her to agree so readily after that display of stubbornness yesterday.

“Meet me at the back entrance in five minutes.” He pauses to consider her appearance. There’s a splash of blood near the hem of her dress. He wonders if she hasn’t noticed, or hasn’t had time to clean it. Or if she simply doesn’t care. “Wear different clothes. You’ll stick out with those rags.”

“Yes.” For a moment she looks like she might want to say more. But the moment passes, and she retreats back into the quarters she shares with the other Doll as Dietfried turns heel towards the servants’ entrance.

A few minutes later she rejoins him at the servants’ entrance, and he almost does a double-take in astonishment. Her new outfit is – well, it’s certainly different. The dress is _significantly_ shorter than her previous one, for starters. She’s wearing the same tall boots, but the skirt of the dress is short enough that her knees are bare. The coat over it is less a coat and more a long jacket, and the fit is odd – too big in the chest, but it clings tightly to her waist. The overall effect is… strange.

At least she no longer has that damned brooch.

He realises he’s staring. She meets it for all of a moment before looking down at her shoes; her fringe covers her eyes. Is that a faint blush spreading across her cheeks? Of all things. He mentally catalogues _embarrassment_ as another emotion she’s apparently capable of displaying now.

“I didn’t bring any spare clothes, so I borrowed from Cattleya. She brought several spare outfits.”

He snorts. “It’ll do.”

They leave the interim embassy as inconspicuously as possible and make their way in a winding trail around the city centre. The atmosphere is festive, excited: news of the special envoy’s arrival has spread quickly, and people have turned out. Despite the chill in the air, the plazas are full, and the markets are crowded with stalls selling trinkets, sweetmeats – he even spots one selling strawberries.

The railway really must be doing its job, if they can get strawberries all the way up here.

And yet, an undercurrent of tension runs through it. The war is nowhere near a distant memory, and everyone is aware of the existence of the rebel faction threatening the fragile peace. Dietfried catches whispers of it on street corners, a constant refrain of what if, what if, what if.

The people are terrified of this peace treaty not working.

And that’s the _good_ news.

-

They’ve been walking for a few hours at this point, and the sun is already behind the mountains. He checks his pocket watch: nearly six o’clock. Perfect. There’s one place in particular he wants to survey, the single bit of useful information in those – and the term is really too generous – _intelligence_ reports.

And there it is: a narrow, timber-frame building sandwiched between two newer brick houses. Most of the buildings in Hormgard are timber-frame, but the inn stands out for its age, the large beams tarred black and crooked with the weight of centuries. A large, diamond-paned window lets light from the taproom spill out onto the street. According to the reports he read earlier, this inn – or the taproom, more specifically – was the epicentre of political action among Gardarik’s lower classes just before the war. Dietfried knows how this works: most of the soldiers that died in the war would have been the sons of bakers, grooms, cobblers. If anyone would have cause to resent the peace treaty, it's the patrons of this establishment. 

Dietfried stops the girl with a hand on her elbow. Her arm is unyielding beneath his grip, but she stops walking readily enough.

“This inn is popular with the working class,” he informs her under his breath. “We’ll stop here a while.” Then, realising his grip on her elbow isn’t what might be called particularly _friendly_ , he moves his hand to her upper back and guides her in. If she’s surprised by the gesture, she gives no indication of it.

The warm interior is a welcome reprieve from the rapidly dropping temperature outside, and they quickly take a seat at one of the few free tables. Dietfried makes a conscious effort to behave like they’re… at least friends, if not _together_. This was, after all, the entire point of bringing her along.

He leaves her at the table and uses his trip to the bar as a cover to evaluate the room. The tangle of people is already thick enough to afford him several minutes to look around unobtrusively. The atmosphere is more boisterous than anything else, but he can feel that same undercurrent of tension there was out on the street – stronger here, if anything.

He returns to their table with two pints of ale and sets them down. The girl takes one sip and pushes it away in clear disgust. The look on her face is very nearly enough to startle a chuckle out of him.

“Don’t feel obliged.”

He sits back, content to sip his drink for the moment – it’s objectively terrible, but anything alcoholic is welcome given the sleep-deprived headache he’s been nursing all day – and lets the sounds of the room wash over him. The peace treaty is on everybody’s lips, predictably. It takes a while for anything to catch his attention, but at last it does. A table near the back, occupied by various burly men in worker’s clothing. At first he’s not sure, but then – yes, there it is again – every so often one of them stands and slips through a door the back, and fails to come back out. Instinct tells him he’s found what he’s looking for.

He realises suddenly that they’ve sitting in stony silence for entirely too long. He doesn’t feel the distinctive prickle at the back of his neck that comes from being watched – but still. If someone _were_ watching, there’s no way they’d believe the two of them to be anything other than eavesdropping.

“Talk to me.”

The girl blinks in clear surprise.

“We won’t do much blending in sitting here like we’re at a funeral,” he clarifies, a touch shortly.

She hesitates a moment before replying, “What would you like to talk about?”

What would he–? Of all the questions to ask. He casts around for a topic of conversation and picks the first one that comes to mind.

“Why a Doll?”

The question’s clearly taken her by surprise, and Dietfried is surprised in turn – this is the first time he’s ever seen her show hesitation. Her hands fold in on themselves, and she moves them off the table into her lap. Her gaze never moves from his, but she seems to be considering what to say. After a heavy pause, she speaks at last. “I –”

At that moment, a man comes up to their table.

“Hey, anyone sitting here or can I…?” He gestures at a spare chair. Dietfried feels a brief and unexpected flash of irritation – all the more unexpected for not being directed at her.

“There’s no-one here, no.”

The man nods in appreciation and hauls off the chair as Dietfried directs his attention back to the girl.

The girl who, at this very moment, seems to be using her glass as a sort of improvised shield between them. Her attention is focused on it to the point of comedy, as if she’s…

… as if she’s hoping he’ll let the question go.

Well, whatever. If she wants to keep her secrets, let her; Dietfried doesn’t care. He _doesn’t_.

He turns his attention back to the table at the back to find there’s only two men left. As he watches from the corner of his eye, both men rise: one disappears into the back, the other takes a seat at the bar. A watchman, most likely.

How to proceed, he muses. They could leave and try to sneak around the back, but if his instincts are right and something is going on, they’ll likely have someone watching the back as well as the front.

Sometimes in war, when the enemy expects stealth, it is better to be brazen.

He drains the last of his beer and makes his way back to the bar. Catching the bartender’s attention with a gesture, he asks, “Wouldn’t happen to have room for two for the night?” He keeps his focus off the watchman sitting two stools down, but he can feel the man’s stare on him.

The bartender nods, rummaging under the counter with one hand as the other fills a pint glass. “Twenty for the night, and you’re out by ten in the morning so we can clean.” Dietfried pays and the bartender pulls a small key out, slapping it on the counter.

“In the back, up the stairs. Second on your right.”

He returns to their table and leans in close. “You saw the group of men at the back?”

“The ones who left one by one? Yes.”

Good. Then they’re on the same page. “They’re likely meeting somewhere in the back; I’ve booked a room as an excuse.” He waits just long enough that following the men into the back is… _probably_ no longer suspicious, then rises. He can’t resist throwing out, “Try to follow my lead.”

He slings an arm around her as they make their way into the back hallway. He risks a quick glance at the watchman over his shirt collar; the man is staring, but it’s not suspicion on his face. It’s jealousy.

He wouldn’t be so jealous if he knew what she was capable of.

They enter the hallway behind the bar and Dietfried immediately withdraws his arm and shuts the door behind them as silently as possible. To their immediate left is the stairway the bartender mentioned, which he gives a once-over to check for anyone watching but otherwise ignores. In front of them, the hallway continues in an L-shape. A heavy, bolted wood door and single window give out onto the alleyway behind the establishment. He motions for the girl to follow him and moves forward, his back pressed against the wall, to the bend in the hallway. Crouching down, he removes a knife from his boot and uses the reflection in the blade to peek around the corner.

There’s a guard, all right. The man is standing at a door just around the corner.

 _One_ , he signals to her using military sign. _Close. Two steps. Ready?_

She nods and signs, _ready_.

There’s a split second of silence, like the moment before lightning strikes. Then he signs, _go!_ and she launches herself around the corner in a blur. Dietfried follows right after. She delivers a devastating uppercut to the guard’s midsection; Dietfried clamps one hand around his mouth and winds his other arm around his neck. It doesn’t take long for the unfortunate guard to lose consciousness, and they lower him to the floor soundlessly.

 _Keep watch_ , he signs, then presses his ear to the door. It takes him a second to pick out individual voices.

“… made it into the city.”

An indistinct mix of voices after that; it sounds like multiple people are trying to talk at once. After a while they quiet down, and another voice rises over them.

“Then what should we do?”

“For now, nothing. We…” the voice becomes indistinct briefly, and Dietfried curses under his breath. “If this isn’t enough to make their shitty peace explode –” there’s a round of laughter – “then the people will have to manifest our discontent with the peace process.”

Just then, he hears footsteps from inside the room. They’re close. And they’re coming toward the door.

There’s no time to hide, and no point: the unconscious guard is a dead giveaway. He spins so fast he almost gives himself whiplash and locks eyes with the girl – and then she’s moving. 

She doesn’t even bother with unbolting the door to the outside; instead, she leaps directly through the window, using her metal arms as a shield against the glass shards. He follows directly after – shouting breaks out behind them – and then they’re running, the cold air stinging his cheeks, the sounds of pursuit at their heels.

They run through the dimly lit alleyways, but their pursuers are tenacious. He follows the girl, more out of necessity than choice: he’s fast, but her speed is astounding. Suddenly, they come to a crossroads, and he makes a split-second decision.

As they turn the corner, he reaches out, manages to close his hand around her arm – barely – and yanks her back, into the shadows of the nearest doorway. She gasps in surprise and raises one hand to his chest, but otherwise makes no sound. He draws her closer and turns slightly, so that he can see the crossroads, but she’s obscured by his body.

They stand in utter stillness as a second later, no less than four men run into the crossroads and skid to a halt. One curses.

“Which way?”

“Split up,” another quickly orders. “Whichever way they’ve gone, we can cut them off. Quickly!”

With that, the group disperses. Dietfried waits until the last man’s footsteps have faded out of hearing before loosening his grip slightly. The girl makes no move to extricate herself, and he’s mildly surprised by that. He glances down at her and finds her staring blankly into the middle distance. He lets his arms drop to his sides, and that gets her to react: she looks up at him with a strange expression on her face. On anyone else he’d call it wistful.

Suddenly the air between them feels tense and claustrophobic, despite the night cold. Dietfried takes a breath and pushes past her into the open street.

“Let’s head back. We should inform the armed forces we’ve identified the presence of an anti-peace faction in Gardarik,” he says, looking up. Anything to break the silence.

She falls in beside and slightly behind him as they make their way – carefully – back to the interim embassy. It’s well and truly dark now, and the temperature has dropped precipitously. Everyone with a lick of sense has retreated indoors; there’s nobody around but them. From the corner of his eye he sees the girl shiver slightly, and he’s seized by a momentary, nonsensical desire to give her his coat, before he summarily banishes it. Ridiculous notion; it’s just a bit of cold.

As though the world has picked up on his line of thought and is keen to add insult to injury, it starts raining soon after – a fine mist that dews on their clothing before sinking in. He’s debating actually giving her his coat when a sudden gust of wind howls down the street toward them. The girl hunches over and pulls her coat tighter across the chest, but the wind snaps the lower half back, and –

Her skirt is split up the thigh. He sees several inches of porcelain skin –

Dietfried’s stomach slingshots up to his throat and then ricochets down to his shoes in extremely short order; he turns away without knowing exactly why. His mouth feels inexplicably dry.

Something about this entire situation feels like stretching a rubber band until it snaps, and he feels… he feels angry. Was he _actually_ going to give her his coat? Ridiculous.

He makes his way back to the embassy with renewed speed; by the time they arrive they’re both soaked through, and his anger has faded somewhat.

“Go sleep; I’ll take care of the debriefing,” he tells her. She nods and quickly disappears, to his relief. He’s spent entirely too long in her company.

He sends a servant to inform the Gardarik officers an urgent meeting is required, then quickly changes into dry clothing. It takes a further hour before the debriefing concludes and he tumbles, exhausted, into bed.

But he finds little rest. His sleep is troubled again that night – for a very different reason this time. In his dreams, he is plagued by visions of rivulets of rain, running down a creamy thigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small note on canon: obviously this diverges immediately after episode 12, but I’m also handwaving it by saying Dietfried killed the Brigardier General fast enough in my fic that the bombs at Grandezza never went off. Canon status: HANDWAVED
> 
> I’m in the market for a beta, by the way! To catch spelling errors and give feedback on pacing, mainly, since I’m writing this fic basically by writing all the self-indulgent scenes I want to see then filling in the gaps afterward. Hmu if you think you’re game!


End file.
